Once again, I have had this chapter written out for several weeks. Finally got it typed up in my computers class because we were doing html coding and I already knew it. Sad as it is to admit, it will probably take a few weeks to get the next chapter up, even though I already have it written out.
I do not own Digimon :'(
Chapter 6: New Friends and Enemies
"Ken!" Daisuke yelled, seeing the bluenette approach. Looking up, Ken spotted the enthusiastic athlete at the gate to school. He did not increase his pace, knowing he would meet up with Daisuke soon. Most likely the soccer player would get tired of waiting and run to see him. As he expected, fast footsteps approached him. "Hey, Ken! I am to school on time today! Aren't you proud of me?" he asked.
"Good job, Motomiya," Ken replied, putting as much sincerity as he could into the words.
"Daisuke," the other male said, receiving a questioning glance from the violet-eyed teen to his right. "We're friends, Ken. I don't call you Ichijouji. Call me Daisuke, not Motomiya. You've done it before."
Looking in his friend's smiling eyes, he said, "I'll try, Daisuke."
"Yay! Come on, we need to get to class before it starts!" Daisuke cheered, grabbing Ken's arm and dragging him across the school grounds. Ken, more surprised than anything, stared blank-faced at the back of the cinnamon-brunette's head and allowed himself to be pulled along. Students and teachers alike stood in awe at the soccer player's antics and the normally intimidating teen's lack of retaliation.
Tapping his captor's hand, Ken said, "Excuse me, Daisuke." The other male stopped and looked back at that neutral face with its characteristic scowl. "I need to stop by locker." His tone held the same neutral quality his face did, but Daisuke smiled and pulled him back in the other direction. People scattered at their approach, maintaining what had become considered a safe distance between them and the seemingly volatile bluenette. Daisuke was completely disregarding that barrier.
Retrieving a book and closing the metal door, he moved his hand out of Daisuke's reach. "I can walk on my own, Motomiya," Ken glared in annoyance.
"Daisuke," the cheerful boy corrected.
Sighing, Ken began walking away. Stopping after a few feet and looking back, he asked, "You coming, Daisuke?"
Cheering up immediately, the brunette nearly tripped over his own feet in excitement. "Yep!" he hollered, catching up before Ken had time to sigh again and hooking his arm through the bluenette's, pulling him down the hall. The other students stared after them incredulously. The ocean of students flooded back together behind the pair, staring at the two boys.
Ken lowered his head and tried to ignore the stares, but found the sudden attention increasingly unnerving. In a way, he felt like a deer in the headlights. Having grown up in utter secrecy and shroudery, he felt completely exposed and naked with people analyzing him. A vague part of his mind, maybe a small fragment that survived the brutal conditioning, wondered if any of his family's victims felt the same way when they were being scoped out and stalked.
The classroom door came into sight and all traces of the stray thought fell into the dark recesses of his mind. Rolling his eyes as Daisuke ran into the door, the bluenette untangled his slim arm from his companion's tanned one and open the supposedly difficult obstacle. "Pull, not push, Daisuke," he said, a slight hint of a chuckle in his voice. Already entering the classroom, ken did not see the mischievous smile ghost across Daisuke's features before being replaced with his overly large one. Laughing quietly, he raced after the unsocial teen.
Taking his seat, Daisuke immediately started to ramble. "You know, you learn new things every day, like a pull a door instead of push it."
"You try to sneak in through that door every day, you already knew that," Ken corrected in his normal, flat tone. The cinnamon-brunette didn't seem to have heard for he continued.
"Then again, that's what school is all about, learning new things. I mean, what is the point of coming to school if you don't learn? It would be like going to a food court to buy books. Speaking of lunch, never put hot sauce on the school's Special Surprise. I was running to the bathroom for about six hours afterwards, and it did not have a good color coming out the other end-" A pale hand blocked the rest of the hyperactive male's words. He curiously looked over at Ken, who was covering his own mouth with the other hand.
"That is thoroughly disgusting and you should stop before I become sick," Ken stated.
"Oh, okay," Daisuke said, suppressing his cheerfulness so as to not annoy Ken again.
The teacher walked in at that point and experience had taught him of the uselessness of trying to talk to Ken once class started. Talking to a wall worked better, for walls don't have hands to hit the back of your head with when they'd heard enough.
The teacher paused in her writing and looked around confused. She didn't seem to understand why the door behind her was closed. Swiveling to take in the room, her eyes fell on the odd pair of boys at the back corner. "Oh. You're here on time today, Daisuke," she said, surprise evident.
Ken nearly chuckled, and several classmates actually did, though the ex-assassin-in-training guessed it was for a different reason. For Ken, it was because of a single random thought. She does count the seconds.
Hateful eyes watched the brunette depart once again. Bleached hair fell in his eyes and Shion agitatedly swatted the strands away. He wasn't just watching Daisuke leave, he was watching months of work get washed away in a flash flood called Ichijouji. The name left a horrid taste in his mouth and he growled. The first attempt to remove the teenager horrifically backfired. Daisuke wasn't speaking to him after he tried to break the two apart. At that moment, Shion realized sucking up to the brunette would no longer work. Blackmail and force were his only options left. He would have to remove Ken Ichijouji first, though.
Growling again and heading towards the library, he shoved passed a pair of girls, one with brunette locks and the other with long, light purple hair. "Jerk!" the more vulgar of the two hissed, receiving a hit on the arm.
"Miyako!" the brunette scowled.
"What?" the other girl asked. "At least I didn't call him a bastard, or a cock-sucking jackas-Ow!" the brunette hit her again.
"Miyako!" she growled, voice lower than the first time and looking extremely disapproving.
Miyako looked away ashamed. "Sorry, Hikari. For the reference to homosexuality, not for the insults! That guy was a bastard."
"I know he was," the girl called Hikari agreed. "But there was no way he was going to hear you unless you spoke up." She sighed at the purple-haired girl's stupefied expression. "And thank you for apologizing. You really should watch it, though. You know I can get very defensive about it."
Smiling cheerily, Miyako forgot all about the rude bleached blonde and pushed open the door to the cafeteria. "Yeah, come on," she grinned. "Let's eat!" Giggling as the girl drug her towards the serving counter, Hikari figured she'd just tell once they got there that she had packed a lunch so she didn't have to gag down that toxic waste they tried to pass off as food.
A spiky head drew her attention and she watched the class clown weave through the crowd. "Hey, didn't he normally hang out with that jackass blonde?" Hikari asked.
Miyako turned to follow the brunette girl's finger. "Yeah, he used to. I hear he hangs out with Ken, now. You know, that dangerous boy who supposedly broke a guy's arm in the seventh grade," she replied.
"Seems the rumor is true," Hikari said, watching the cinnamon-brunette take a seat at the back table. She continued to observe them as her friend loaded up her tray. When Miyako finally walked back to her, she turned and smiled at her friend's joke as they made their way over to their table. She sat next to a natural blonde, leaning over to give him a slight peck on the cheek, giggling when the other blonde at the table had to hold back her brother. "Come on, Taichi," she chuckled. "I don't get overprotective when you kiss Yamato."
Taichi almost got free from his captor at that comment, for the other male sighed and loosened his grip. "Just because the entire school knows we are going out doesn't mean you have to reiterate it every chance you get," Yamato said, pulling Taichi back into his seat. "Calm down. We all know you got over that over two months ago."
The male brunette grumbled and turned away from his lover when he tried to kiss him. After a few more seconds, he exasperatedly said, "Okay, I give up! What does reiterate mean?"
Chuckling and managing to sneak in a kiss this time, Yamato replied, "I means say, as is over and over and over again whenever the chance comes up like your little sister likes to do."
A slim finger poked the brunette's shoulder, and the photographer girl turned to face her boyfriend. "Yes, Takeru?" she asked.
"What are you looking at so intently?" he asked, tilting his head slightly in a way that never failed to make her smile.
"Daisuke and Ken," she replied, going back to watching them. "For as long as I can remember, I have never seen Daisuke with an actual friend. And Ken was always by himself. It just seems so lonely. It seems so lively and… well… happy over there now, but something still is missing. It still seems to be kind of lonely, like there should be more people over there. I don't think Ken got his joke." Daisuke must have told something funny, for he was laughing, a laugh that seemed to turn nervous and then down when the blue-haired boy didn't join in.
Takeru, who had followed both her words and her eyes, could not disagree. "Then let's go sit with them," he suggested. Hikari gave him a confused look when he stood up. "Come on, let's go sit with them."
Smiling, she also stood. "Yeah!" she cheered.
"Where are you two going?" Taichi asked quickly, standing just as fast.
"To go sit with Daisuke and Ken," Takeru stated.
"If you were paying attention to something other than that sludge you were eating you would know that," Yamato chuckled, receiving a disapproving glare from his boyfriend.
The two nimbly made their way through the lunch room towards the back corner table. They were almost to their destination when people finally realized where they were going. "Can we sit here?" Hikari asked sweetly. Daisuke looked up from his rambling.
"Um…" he said dumbly, Ken focusing on his food. "Alright!" Daisuke exclaimed.
"Thank you," Takeru said, sitting one chair over from Daisuke. "My name is Takeru. And this is-" the girl hit him.
"Hikari," she finished for him. "I can introduce myself."
"Daisuke," the cheerful brunette chimed. "And this is Ken. He really doesn't talk much more than to tell me to shut up or pay attention in class or stop throwing paper airplanes. Sometimes he just hits me to get me to stop because he is too busy doing whatever he's doing to-Ow!"
Ken had gently smacked the back of Daisuke's head. "You're rambling again," he in a monotonous voice.
"And sometimes he does both," he embarrassingly said, rubbing the back of his head.
Hikari's expression was compassionate (in a friendly way). "You seem so lonely," she directed to Ken, who looked up at her from his lunch, a perplexed look on his face. "Both of you do, but you more so, Ken. We figured we would come and see if we could be friends."
Daisuke gave her a pure smile, one very unlike his normal one. "I would like that," he replied. "And you can help me with Ken."
"Help you… with… Ken?" she asked, confused.
"Yeah, teach him what a friend is. He's never had one and I'm afraid I'm not a very good teacher. I'm more suited for the job of 'couch potato' or 'game tester.'"
Hikari giggled at that. "I would love to be friends with you two. That okay with you, Ken?"
The bluenette had no clue how to react. Just nod, the voice in his head told him. And he did.
A hand firmly grabbed his arm and the ex-assassin-in-training turned to see Shion glowering at him. The kid looked half-mad, half-pissed, secluding himself in a shadow with what could clearly ne made out as a closed pocket knife in his hand. "I will only warn you one," he said harshly, squeezing Ken's wrist to demonstrate his strength. "Daisuke will be mine, so I would suggest you stay away from him." He amateurly disappeared into the shadows and made his way towards the next class.
He is going to be trouble, Ken thought. Whether to himself or the voice in his head he did not know.
The voice nodded.
Please enjoy!
